Saturday, November 16, 2013

70' Hydrascope

In addition to the various sizes of Techno crane that we carry ( 50', 30' 15') we have had a 70' Hydrascope for the last week. It's my first time using this behemoth of a crane. First, let me say that it is a beautiful piece of equipment. It comes in on a Titan base, and is a gleaming, gorgeous crane. On the other hand. It's big. I mean BIG. It's too big. After one shot on it, I couldn't wait to get back to my 50' Technocrane. The problem is that it's too big. Everything about it is just a little too hard, It's too high, too big, and too hard to swing. It's just too much mass. While I see it's applications for some novelty shots, it's just an impractical piece of equipment. Now I will say now that this has nothing to do with Hydrascope vs Technocrane. As far as I can tell, there is little to no difference in the applications between the shorter cranes. The movement of the Hydrascope thirties is fluid and fast when you need it, and the pickle operators are top notch (thanks, Chris). But after one shot on the 70', I said, " Put "b" camera on it and let me have my 50' back." After a day of dolly pushing and Techno swinging, I just didn't want to deal with it. My compliments to Chapman for building such a beautiful crane, but at some point, it becomes just too cumbersome to deal with. And that's the operative word when dealing with this crane: cumbersome. Nothing about it is easy. So, for specialty shots, it's fine. But if I had to wrangle it every day, I would up my rate by at least ten dollars an hour.
D

1 comment:

I also have had the opportunity to use the 73' Hydroscope crane. At first I found it daunting. A little frightening. But after using it a few days I got used to it and actually couldn't wait to use it again. A real time saver as well as saving your energy on those long days. It's not designed for fast booming moves. More so for graceful sweeping shots or long tracking pickling shots. It got us out of a few jams. Using it to replace a 60' up hill on dolly shot. Looked beautiful.

I must mention. A great thank to to James Razo the pickle operator, Joe the G3 head tech and the Titan driver Dan. Those guys work very well as a team and made my job a lot easier.

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